Making RPMs?

Eklipz · 11-21-2004, 03:44 PM

I have been a long time user of Slackware, but I am moving to Fedora Core 3 because I like the package manager (RPMs) better than the slackware package manager. I have a question though... if I was to download a program that needs to be compiled from source, is there any way I can make an RPM out of it? On slackware there is the makepkg command, or a program called "checkinstall" that practically automates it all for you. Is there something similar for making fedora core RPMs?

zWaR · 11-21-2004, 03:47 PM

Checkinstall exists for FC too. But i don't know where to find it.

slyman · 11-21-2004, 03:55 PM

http://www.rpm.org/RPM-HOWTO/

Eklipz · 11-21-2004, 04:16 PM

I found checkinstall-1.5.3-3.1.fc3.rf.i386.rpm after a quick google search. I assume it is the same as slackware's checkinstall, except it makes an RPM. If that is the case, I recommend it to anyone who ever needs to compile a new program from a tarball. Here is a link to the download page:
http://dag.wieers.com/packages/checkinstall/

zWaR · 11-21-2004, 06:00 PM

plus it's excelent when you'd like to uninstall something; just make a rpm with it and then execute rpm -e package_name

Nigel_Tufnel · 11-23-2004, 08:48 AM

Checkinstall will create packages for RH/Fedora, Slackware or Debian. You just need to pass one of the following:
checkinstall packagename -R (for RPMs, .rpm), -S (for Slackpackages, .tgz), -D (for Debian packages, .deb)

And yes, removal of self compiled programs is much easier/cleaner if it's been packaged.